Royal Affairs Discussion Thread and Romance Guide (Spoilers Within)

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First question means “in the first question in the game about gender selection, what do you pick?” :smile:

For “what feels right”… really, it’s whatever it means to you! “I played through with Character A as Gender B and now they feel like Gender B in my head” or “I played with Character A as Gender B but I feel like they’re more like Gender C”… I find it interesting to hear about how people feel about them as I don’t write intending any particular gender for these selectable characters.

@furyleika that’s really interesting! I’ve realised that I haven’t thought much about my own habits in choosing, so this is partly to hear how everyone else does it as well as about how people feel about Royal Affairs specifically.

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well, I’m a woman and a lesbian. Therefore, I get me a harem of Ladies! :rofl:

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Entirely reasonable!

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So say the woman who writes them interruption to the sacred Smoochie… :smirk:

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My preferences as a gay guy. Cast full of pretty boys for the win. :wink:

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i guess it’s really just “vibes”, i’m sure rooted on some kind of unconscious bias but anyways. i choose the gender as i play. i’m a lesbian and asher is still very much a man in all my plays. :smiley:

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I usually go by character descriptions and my own preferences. I usually like my female ROs to “look” a certain way due to my personal preferences. So I like deciding the gender of the character after reading about their physical description but that’s just how I work. I can imagine that this may problematic for some.

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Apart from Dominique, who I feel works better as female, I think I just ended up preferring the gender everyone got randomly assigned on my first playthrough, which was female Asher, nonbinary Beaumont (but I picked all feel right for Beaumont), male Hyacinthe and Trevelyan, and nonbinary Javi.

I like the randomness because it feels a little weird getting to decide others’ genders for them, even if it’s not as though the character I play is actually doing that themselves.

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Answering honestly and candidly:

Asher had always felt male to me, right from the beginning. Like someone else mentioned, based on my own personal upbringing, certain characters exhibit characteristics and behaviors that I automatically box in. I personally prefer the LI’s that are taller and bigger than me to be male. Asher just also seems so proper and wary, and since I play as a Princess, it made more sense to me that M!Asher would try to avoid impropriety.

Laurie reads to me as either AMAB/AFAB enby or male. Idk why, but I just feel like Laurie either doesn’t care about gender norms or binary pronouns. I feel like business and everything else is foremost to get caught up. I’m aware that that isn’t how gender expression works, but something about how Laurie moves and speaks just feels like they would match to the beat of there on drum. Just based off of my personal imagination, I also feel like Laurie is one of those types to dress where you would never know anyway. I also don’t remember if any gender choices puts them in a skirt or other typically feminine clothing options, which, it doesn’t have to be, but I feel like that may have persuaded my reasoning as well.

Dominique I felt could go seriously any way. I usually vary Dominique’s gender on every play through and I feel it works any kind of way. I do appreciate having a female Dominique just to have another female in the dorms. I know if there was actually a campus with boarding, my playing for Dom and Laurie wouldn’t work, but I like to assume that no one really cares.

Javi is my favorite boy to annoy. I always assumed male, and unfortunately I cannot explain why. I just love seeing a twisted up grumpy face and it’s just always male. And I always played Rosario as a male, so having Javi look up to an older brother just meant something to me. Especially during a very spoilery part later on (forgive me, I may have said too much).

Trevalyan (I butchered that I’m so sorry), I see again as either AMAB enby or male. I think because we know Estelle is our mother’s name, and it’s just amusing to me to have Trev being upset sharing a name with her, even moreso if it’s considered a traditionally female name and they don’t present as such.

I am warming up more to a M!Hyacinthe, but I almost always play them as a female. Again, while I toss back and forth regarding romancing Hyacinthe, I find my MC looking for more female friendships.

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@idonotlikeusernames also eminently reasonable!

@rosies I am so fascinated by how people are turning out to have preferences for different characters!

@attolia I don’t think it’s problematic! I’ve actually been wondering about giving a little more appearance or personality info before the character gender is set, but I’ll see how that goes. It’s tricky to go into much detail without using any pronouns…

@AysaRose thank you so much, that’s so interesting to hear. I really enjoy the details of what you’ve mentioned about the characters and how they look ingame! :sparkling_heart:

I’m loving seeing the results develop on this, it’s so interesting!

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Whether I like them or not. The characters I like are my targeted gender, the ones I don’t, aren’t.

So for example, I chose male for Javi, but female for Hyacinthe, since it’s her that I’m romancing.

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That makes sense, I suspected that planning who to romance would play a big part in people’s choices!

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Usually play with Javi,Dominique,Asher, and Hyacinthe as lasses,for the revolutionary I have no special preference but perphaps leaning more into a male leader of the people but honestly as stated on the folk both fit.

Mainly like for the LI to be girls in order to get a diverse set of options when it comes to the sweet romance, as I mainly play with a male MC.

Despite this I have to admit that it is easier to picture Asher as a boy as a man acting as a bodyguard is just one of those things Hollywood and general TV series have installed in our heads as the normal, you know the big bad bald muscle shaped guy that protects his charge from even the flies.

Asher as a lass is nevertheless very cute and a welcome addition to my playthrough so going against the tide there!

Beaumont is another tricky one, as they are always lost in nostalgia, cynical about the life they are getting, it is easy for me to picture them as your typical romantic poet on the daring part of that identity as well giving how she and Hyacinthe can end together, a traditionalist but a dreamer that can dive deep into emotional matters such as love

Regarding Javi see her more as a spoiled princess bound by the shackles of her position as she would rather be an actress and fly free from the Royal nest, Hyacinthe in terms of gender a talented dancer as a beautiful young woman comes to mind before anything else that has had success doing what she loves the most and finally Dominique as the forgetful noble lady that is flirty and somewhat naive.

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I tend to pick genders according to my MC’s preference. Since i play a different MC each time, their preferences are different each time. Though I must admit, my favorite is Male!Asher and Female!Laurie.

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I like to have roughly the same number of male, female, and non-binary characters in a story, so I try to divide the cast accordingly.

If I’m doing a blind playthrough, I usually assign genders in a certain order. e.g. I might decide the first character I meet is female, the second is non-binary, the third is male, the fourth is female, the fifth non-binary, the sixth male, etc…

If I’m able to read about the characters before playing, character tropes influence how I gender them, though I still try to keep gender ratios the same. Take Hyacinthe for example, when I learned more about them I knew I wanted them to be a man in my playthrough because ballet dancers are almost always assumed to be women irl, and I personally don’t see a lot of demure men in media (I enjoy subverting stereotypes).

I do prefer romancing men, however, so if my favourite romance is a different gender, I’ll ‘swap’ their gender with another character.

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I tend to choose all female out of laziness, because I hate getting a question before every NPC and I prefer ROs to be female.

If there was a “Set the gender of one character and randomize the rest” I’d probably choose that one most of the time, tbh, because after the first playthrough I generally know what RO I am going to go for before I start.

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On initial play through, it is random or whatever is the default for the author’s mechanics.

Once I know who I’d prefer to romance, I will use the “choose” feature to set the preferred RO’s gender and do a random roll for the rest.

My biggest concern with “choice mechanisms” is the unintended side effect of losing character diversity.

Just because I want to romance Javi as a female, that does not mean I desire the entire cast to be female.

If I wish to romance more than one character, I will replay until I have romanced all of whom I wanted.

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Asher - m
Beaumont - f
Dominique - m
Javi - f
Trevelyan - m
Hyacinthe - f

Roughly equal number of male and female ROs is important to me regardless of my romance preferences. So here it’s perfect because I can have 3 male and 3 female.

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i don’t feel any gender is most right for any of the characters. so i didn’t really answer any of those questions, i just tend to play based off of my own personal romantic/sexual attraction and i happen to be a lesbian so when given the choice i will romance women who can be romanced or really any sapphics. (there are very few IFs that don’t treat non-binary genders as a third gender and it’s ugh getting to be annoying)

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I’m not sure I understand why Hyacinthe’s relationship lowers if you cheer enthusiastically after their performance. This was pretty great otherwise! I just thought I’d mention it since I can’t imagine that was intended?

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